Author: Peter Skinner
Date: 21:59:33 03/15/05
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On March 15, 2005 at 23:20:36, Tony Nichols wrote: >Hi, Pete > Interesting game. 21 moves of theory?! I know many masters who can't do that! >After 22. Ne6 black is better but white has drawing chances. Amazingly Fritz >doesn't play 29...f6! when black is winning the exchange. I will say it takes >stones of steel to play an open scillian against a computer! You will get many >wins against humans playing like that, but against computers you have to play >perfectly. In the final position it looks like white can probably draw with a >handfull of moves. >Regards >Tony > >P.S. I have played many games against my engines. Unlike you, not one of mine is >worthy of comment! In all honesty I don't think I could do 21 moves of theory like that again. In fact most the moves took longer than 2 minutes for me to move. The other sad part I didn't know I went that far into theory until John pointed it out. Fritz was out of book on move 14, or so it seemed. It was playing almost instantly on all my moves (almost right up to move 30). I thought it was pondering all my moves. Now it seems it was still book for the most part. Someone else emailed me and said it was amazing that Fritz didn't play 29. .. f6!. The main goal I had for the game was to have something on each file to control it's rooks. If there wasn't something on a file, I wanted there to be a possible threat. Another small goal was to see how long I could hold the center. That has been a weakness of mine. Once I learned as much as I could with the opening I thought I would try a game against Fritz. I used the teachings of CM that you move the center pawns first, knights before bishops, castle as soon as you can, and don't move your queen to early, then develope your plan. As you can see from the game, I was looking for play to develope on the King side, which it did. When I played 13. Be3 it was really only one of two moves that I could make, and if I moved Bf2 I would have lost a pawn due to the bishop now blocking the queen. So really I had to move 13.Be3 to gain the pawn back and still have some play. At 14. Rxf4 I thought about this a very long time. Almost 5 minutes in fact. I was unsure if I should re-capture with the bishop on e3, or bite with the rook. I felt I was being setup for something. On move 17 I played Kh1 only due to I didn't see a move that I could make that would benefit me or not get something captured. I liked the position on the board, so Kh1 was more of a wasted move. It didn't hurt anything, and actually provided a little more protection for the King. Overall I think that was the best way to play it. Moving 19. Ke2 and 20. Bc3 was simply repositioning myself on the board. I felt the bishop on c3 was more of a deterant than the knight, and moved the black Queen off a5. It also maintained my goal of central control, which I had at this point. I was breaching into black territory more than black was coming into mine. I also had _something_ on each file. Once again.. simple thinking.. not theory :) (CM actually teaches this. An open file can be very dangerous with queens and rooks on the board.) When black played 25. .. Bxe5 I only had one move to save two pieces. Moving Qg4 did just that. It prevented the pawn from taking my rook on f5 due to the Queen putting the King in check, and removed the bishop threat on my Queen. Black's next move through me for a loop until I looked at it more. I was expecting bxb2 as it would have gained the pawn, and then I could have recaptured with Rxf7. Of course it didn't play that as it's rook on e6 would have been threatened by my Queen on g4. So black played 26... re7 and since bxb2 was possible now I had to protect it, thus 27. c3. After 28...kh8 29. Rg5 qxg4 30. Rxg4 kg7 31. Bd3 was simply to clutter up a half open file. Nothing was in threat, so I played the best "positional" move I could. It put the bishop on a longer diagonal, which is always better. Here is where I thought I had a good draw going. Black moves 31... kf8 and I started to wonder whether I should move Rg4 or Rc1 and of all things my flag drops. Two hours had flown by and I only got through 31 moves... I may need to work on my time management. :) The only reason I played the Sicilian Defense against Fritz is because this is the current opening I am learning/practicing. There are a few IM/GM's (Kastor(GM) for one) on ICC that offer a course about beating the Sicilian, so before I turned that route I tried to see how much I could do on my own with SCID and CM. Obviously I did better than I thought. It isn't a great opening to choose against a computer, but I have never liked anti-computer play of just glogging up the middle with pawns and hoping the computer blunders. I prefer an open game with alot of mobility, maybe this has been my problem in the past. So as you can see it wasn't _planned_ to be in theory that long, but more most of the moves were forced due to board position. I wish I could say that is _was_ planned, but even I know 21 moves of theory is something that Super-GM's do, and even then not all of them. :) I also only posted the game as I was _very_ proud of how far I got. Recently I have been working incredibly hard on openings and middle game tactics with CM. I still get slaughtered with a Queen's Pawn game opening (D00). Computers know that one _way_ to well :) Peter
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